Mahaska County Prepares To Fill Open Supervisor Seat

Mahaska County Courthouse

Oskaloosa, Iowa – Not since 1999 has a Mahaska County Supervisor seat been filled after a resignation. In that year, Jim Van Engelhoven took office as a member of the Iowa House, very similar to outgoing Mahaska County Supervisor Ken Rozenboom.

Daryl Cox was appointed by committee to fill the vacancy left by Van Engelhoven who had 2 years remaining in his term.

Rozenboom submitted his resignation from the Mahaska County Board of Supervisors, and it will be effective January 11th, 2013, just days before taking over his new job as Iowa State Senator for District 40.

A committee composed of the Mahaska County Treasurer Sone Scott, Mahaska County Recorder Diane Upton Crookham and the Mahaska County Auditor will now convene.

There is one more twist of sorts to this. Since current Mahaska County Auditor Kay Swanson is retiring, Auditor elect Sue Brown, who is currently the Deputy Auditor, will be the third person making the decision on how to fill the vacant seat.

Kay Swanson, who is retiring as of December 31st, won’t be in office on January 11th, 2013 when Rozenboom’s resignation officially goes into effect.

Once the committee makes their decision, whether it’s going to be an appointment or special election, it will be published.

Applications and/or resumes for the position will be taken if the committee decides to appoint versus having a special election. If they call for a special election, each party will call a special convention to nominate their candidate.

A petition for a special election, to fill the vacancy, can change the decision of the appointing committee if they go the route of appointment.

Those interested in the special election option will have two opportunities to acquire the nearly 1,100 signatures needed to fill the vacancy. Going the route of special election, they would have 14 days from the date of publication of the notice and once again have 14 days after appointment, if that is the route the committee chose. The signatures would then need to be presented to the auditor’s office within that time frame.

A special election could end up costing the Mahaska County taxpayer $10,000.00. Voter turnout could all depend upon who is on the ballot, among other things.

Mahaska County will have a fully functioning board that will be capable of making decisions during this process. The board will consist of Greg Gordy, who has 2 years remaining of his term in office, Supervisor-elect Mike Vander Molen who is set to take office January 1, 2013, and they will join outgoing Supervisor Ken Rozenboom for those first 11 days.

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Posted by Ken Allsup
on Dec 4 2012. Filed under Local News.
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